This Ordinary Life
by Sara Wolfe
Summary: Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy were split up during the evacuation. But, Narnia still calls to her monarchs...
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** While I didn't want to start posting this until after I'd posted a new (long-overdue) chapter of _Trial By Fire_, this one is coming much more easily than the other, which seems to be subject to an eternal case of writer's block.

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing recognizable. Fellow evacuees are mine, with the exception of Nancy and Jamie, who were borrowed for a short while from _Doctor Who._

**This Ordinary Life**

**Chapter One**

The orders to evacuate the children came after the latest bombing on London. Notices were sent out and assignments were posted in central locations. And, while every effort was made to keep families together, sometimes those efforts were not always successful.

"What do you mean we're being split up?" Peter demanded, incredulously, as he looked over the travel orders that his mother had picked up only that morning.

Four pairs of stricken, horrified eyes stared at Helen Pevensie, and she felt tears welling up in her eyes, which she hastily dashed away before smiling determinedly at her children.

"There's not enough room at the Bixby House for all four of you," she explained. "Mrs. Bixby stipulated that she could only take in two children, so Edmund and Lucy are going to stay with Professor Kirke, an old friend of your father's."

"Can't we all go to Professor Kirke's?" Lucy asked, plaintively.

"He's already promised to take in another group of children," Helen said, "and he simply doesn't have room for all four of you. Not to mention the energy to keep up with so many children."

"It's not fair," Edmund muttered, scowling darkly. "We shouldn't have to go away, at all."

"I'm not going to have you in the middle of a war zone," Helen said, firmly.

"If Dad were here, he wouldn't make us go," Edmund argued, petulantly.

"If Dad were here, that would mean that the war was over and we wouldn't have to go," Peter snapped.

"What about you?" Susan asked, quietly, before her brothers could get into an argument. "You're going to be staying in the middle of a war zone."

"And you'll be working in a factory," Peter spoke up, before Helen could answer. "Everyone knows that the factories are the first-"

He trailed off as he noticed Lucy following the conversation, avidly, but Helen heard the rest of his words clearly: Everyone knows that the factories are the first to be targeted for bombing.

"I will be fine," Helen told him, firmly, her tone indicating that there would be no more discussion. "Now, it's time for bed. We have a big day, tomorrow."

--

The next morning, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy, along with a couple hundred other children and their families, stood on the station platform, saying their goodbyes before they boarded the trains to take them to the country, away from London and the fighting. The noise from the crowds was nearly deafening, and the children could barely hear their mother as she leaned in close to hand them their destination tags.

"Make sure you have your right tags," she instructed, and they obediently looked at their tags to ensure that they had been correctly labeled.

"Everyone has their luggage?" Helen continued, and they nodded, wordlessly. "Darling, you need to keep this on," she added, to Lucy, refastening the tag that the girl was fiddling with.

"Are you warm enough?" she asked, pulling her youngest daughter's coat more snugly around her, and Lucy's eyes filled with tears as she clung tightly to her mother.

"Come with us, Mummy," she pleaded, and Helen wiped away her own tears.

"You'll be a brave girl, won't you?" she asked, instead, and Lucy nodded in reply. "Good girl," Helen murmured, kissing the top of her head.

She moved next to Edmund, holding her youngest son by the shoulders and looking him squarely in the eye.

"I want you to look after your sister and listen to the Professor," she told him. "Can you do that, Edmund?"

When he didn't reply, she frowned, slightly. "Edmund?" she prompted, quietly. "Will you do as I've asked?"

"Yes, Mum," Edmund said, finally, looking away from her to stare at the trains.

Helen tried to kiss the top of his head, as she'd done with Lucy, but he jerked away from her embrace. Helen closed her eyes, briefly, pain lancing through her heart at her youngest son's rejection, but she brushed the feeling aside as she went to hug Susan.

"Be a big girl," she entreated, and Susan nodded, blinking away tears as she hugged her mother.

"It won't be forever, Mum," Susan told her, returning her mother's comforting words. "We'll be home, soon."

"Yes, you will," Helen promised, giving her oldest daughter one last squeeze before letting her go.

She went to her oldest, last, and faced the young man who was still so much a boy. He gave her a tremulous smile, stepping forward to hug her before she had moved a step toward him.

"It'll be all right, Mum," he said, echoing Susan's sentiment.

"You'll look after your sister?" Helen asked, and Peter nodded.

"I will, Mum," he promised, solemnly.

"Good lad," she said. "Do you have your tickets?"

"They're here," he reassured her, showing her the slim slips of paper.

"Right," Helen said, stepping back to look at her children. "Now, all of you, on the train."

"Come on," Peter said, leading his brother and sisters across the platform to board the train.

Helen watched Lucy tugging fruitlessly at Peter's sleeve, trying to go back to her mother, watched Edmund resist Susan's guiding hand through the crowd, and, with a pang, watched Susan impatiently tug the tickets out of Peter's hand because he was too busy distractedly watching a group of soldiers come into the train station – a group of soldiers who were barely more than boys, themselves.

_'This is why you're being evacuated, why you're going where it's safe,'_ she thought, fiercely. _'I won't have you touched by this war.'_

When the train whistle blew, signaling its impending departure, Helen pushed her way through the crowd, across the platform, to wave good-bye to her children. Peter, Susan, and Lucy were all crowded at a window, hanging outside the train, waving frantically, their voices mixed in with the shouts of all the other children. And a few seconds later, Edmund's hand popped out from behind Peter's shoulder, and she imagined that she somehow heard her children's good-byes over all the other cries.

"Goodbye, my darlings!" she shouted out, as the train started to pull away from the station. "Be safe, and take care of each other. I love you!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

The train began to pick up speed as it pulled away from the station, and the children moved away from the window that they were crowded in front of and moved down the aisle, through the crowd, to find an empty compartment. Near the end of the car was a nearly empty compartment with only two other children inside.

"May we?" Peter asked, gesturing to the empty seats, and the girl nodded.

"Move over, Jamie," she said, quietly, and the little boy scooted closer to the window, slumping down in his seat.

Peter put his bag, and the girls', up above the seats, but when he went to help Edmund with his, his brother jerked the handle of his bag out of Peter's grasp, scowling, and shoved it above the seats with a muffled bang. He dropped into the seat closest to the window, moving away from Lucy when she leaned against him as she sat down. Peter frowned but refrained from making a sharp comment that would likely only make things worse.

He turned his attention, instead, to the other children sitting with them, and smiled at the girl, who smiled hesitantly back.

"I'm Peter," he introduced himself. "This is Susan, Edmund, and Lucy,' he added, gesturing to each sibling in turn.

"I'm Nancy," the girl said, in that same quiet tone. "This is Jamie, my so- my brother."

Peter wondered what she had been about to say before she obviously changed her mind, but he put it out of his mind when Nancy smiled brightly at him.

"Where are you being evacuated to?" she asked, and Peter could hear the forced cheer in her voice.

"Kent," Peter told her. "Mrs. Samuel Bixby's house. Edmund and Lucy are going further out, to stay with Professor Digory Kirke."

"I thought you were brothers and sisters, though?" Nancy asked, clearly confused.

"We are," Susan explained. "But, no one can take all of us in, so we have to split up."

"That sounds awful," Nancy said, softly. "I don't know what I'd do if Jamie and I were ever separated."

"Were your parents very sad at sending you away?" Lucy asked, breaking into the conversation.

"Our parents were killed in the bombings," Nancy said, effectively ending that line of conversation.

You said you were bound for a Professor Kirke's house?" Nancy asked, after they had sat in silence for several long, awkward minutes.

"Edmund and Lucy are," Susan clarified, indicating her younger siblings.

"So are they," Nancy told them, pointing to the compartment across from them, crowded with a group of children. "I heard them talking at the station."

"They look nice," Lucy ventured, and Edmund snorted.

"Probably more babies," he said, scornfully," and Lucy glared at him, clearly hurt. Peter decided that enough was enough.

"I'd like a word out in the hall, Edmund," he said, sharply, after biting back his first impulse to snap at his brother, something that would only make things worse. Instead, he tried to think about how his father would handle the situation.

"Please, Ed?" he asked, quietly, when Edmund scowled at the order and slouched further down in his seat. After a minute, Edmund heaved a deep sigh and got to his feet, following Peter out into the corridor.

"Going to yell at me?" Edmund asked, a hint of petulance in his voice, once the door had shut behind them. "You're not Dad, you know. I don't have to do what you say."

"I want to talk to you about what's going to happen when you and Lucy go to Professor Kirke's house," Peter told him. "I don't like this business of splitting up anymore than you do," he continued, not letting Edmund get a word in, "but there's nothing to be done for it, so you're going to have to step up, since I can't be there."

"Mum said that I have to listen to the Professor," Edmund reminded him.

"The Professor is probably some old codger who doesn't even know that there's a war going on," Peter told him, and Edmund cracked a tiny smile. "And, you know how girls worry. Mum doesn't think that you can handle things, that you're still only a kid, but I know what you're capable of."

Edmund stood a little straighter at the unexpected praise from his brother.

"I know I haven't been a very good brother to you," Peter said. "I haven't listened to you, or trusted you, like I should have. I tried to be Dad, and for that, I'm sorry." Edmund's eyes widened at this sudden confession, but Peter wasn't done.

"Starting now," he continued, "I'm going to change all that. I'm trusting you, Ed, with Lucy's safety, and the safety of those other kids, as well."

"Babies," Edmund said, automatically, but his voice lacked the contempt from earlier.

"They are babies," Peter agreed, and Edmund gave him an incredulous, who-are-you-and-what-have-you-done-with-my-brother look. "Look at them," Peter insisted. "Those two by the window are younger than Lucy!"

"They should have been sent away with a teacher or a nanny," Edmund said, quietly, after he'd taken a longer look at the children in the compartment. "They're too young to be alone."

"They're not going to be alone," Peter told him. "You'll be looking after them."

Edmund looked as though he was about to protest so Peter cut him off with an upraised hand.

"You're going to be the man of the house, now, Ed," he said, solemnly. "You're responsible for keeping Lucy and the other children safe."

"You can do this, Ed," Peter continued, encouragingly, when his brother still looked doubtful. "I believe in you."

Edmund nodded, slowly, all trace of his former belligerence gone from his face.

"I won't let you down," he promised.

"Good man," Peter said, clapping him on the shoulder, and Edmund beamed at the words.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

"What were the two of you so engrossed in?" Susan asked, when the boys came back into their compartment.

"Man stuff," Edmund said, and Susan hid a smirk behind her hand. Peter glared at her, and she sobered quickly before Edmund saw her.

Peter and Edmund had just taken their seats, again, when the conductor's voice came booming through the car, announcing their stop at Goosey Station.

"That's us," Susan said, quietly, as Edmund and Lucy turned identically-stricken looks on their older siblings.

Lucy gave a wordless cry as she launched herself at Susan, burying her face against her older sister's side. Her shoulders shook as she cried, and Susan had to blink back tears of her own as she hugged Lucy.

Peter and Edmund solemnly shook hands, but Susan, after a reproachful mutter of "Boys!", pulled her baby brother into a tight hug which he gingerly returned.

Peter, meanwhile, swept Lucy up into a swift hug, whispering "Be brave," into her ear.

"Goosey Station!" the conductor called out, again. "Last call! All off!"

"We have to go," Susan said, apologetically, as Peter wrestled their bags down from above the seats.

"You could just stay on the train," Lucy suggested, sniffling back tears. "Maybe the Professor won't notice you and Peter."

"We'll write every week," Peter promised, as he and Susan hurried to get off the train.

Once on the platform, the two of them ran down the track, towards the end of the train, to try and catch a last glimpse of their younger siblings. Lucy had half her body leaning out the window, waving frantically.

"Goodbye!" she hollered, a sentiment echoed by her older siblings at the top of their lungs.

"Goodbye!" Edmund called out.

He couldn't wave because he had his hands full keeping Lucy from falling out of the window, but he managed a quick smile before the train pulled away from the station, leaving Peter and Susan standing alone on the platform.

With heavy hearts, they turned and started walking back the way they had come. Waiting for them at the end of the platform was a woman, glaring at them with a sour expression on her pinched features.

"Am I to assume," she said, icily, when they stopped in front of her, "that you are Peter and Susan Pevensie?"

"Yes, ma'am," Peter answered, shooting Susan an uneasy look.

"And, what, may I ask," she snapped, "was the purpose of that unseemly display of running and shouting?"

"Our brother and sister are going to another home, ma'am," Susan explained. "We were just saying goodbye."

"Didn't you say your farewells on the train?" Mrs. Bixby demanded.

"Well, yes, ma'am, but-"

Peter trailed off, uncertainly, when Mrs. Bixby scowled at him.

"Then there was no reason for you both to be making such a spectacle of yourselves, was there?" she asked, as both children stared at her incredulously. "I took you children in out of the goodness of my heart. I'll not have people thinking that I'm housing hooligans!"

With that she turned sharply on her heel and strode briskly away.

"Are you coming or not?" she snapped, when she turned around and saw that both Peter and Susan were still standing where she'd left them.

"Yes, ma'am," they chorused, sighing, following in her wake.

"How could she have taken us in out of the goodness of her heart," Peter asked, in a tone too low for their host to hear, "when it's obvious she hasn't got one in the first place?"

Susan burst into hastily-muffled giggles that turned into a coughing fit when Mrs. Bixby looked suspiciously back at them.

"If this is how she acts all the time," Susan muttered, once her giggles had calmed down, "then I'm glad that Lucy and Edmund didn't come with us. Who knows how she'd treat them?"

There was nothing Peter could say to that, because they were at Mrs. Bixby's car, then. He let Susan climb in first and then followed, shutting the door behind them. They'd barely gotten settled into their seats when the car started moving and Peter found himself thrown off balance by the sudden lurching motion.

The drive to Mrs. Bixby's house was long and tiring – and completely silent. Peter and Susan didn't dare try to engage their host in conversation; one look at her stony face convinced them that it was a bad idea. And their one attempt to talk to each other, even quietly, was quelled by a sharp glare from the older woman.

When they finally pulled to a stop in front of Mrs. Bixby's enormous house, she turned the car off and strode up to the front door, clearly expecting them to follow her. Peter unloaded his and Susan's bags from the back of the car and walked with his sister up to the house. Mrs. Bixby was waiting for them on the porch, tapping her foot, impatiently.

"You will not," she began, when they stopped in front of her, "go into any part of the house that I have declared off limits to you. You will act in a civilized manner at all times; there will be no running or shouting. And when I have company over, you will make yourselves scarce. Am I understood?"

"Yes, ma'am," Peter and Susan echoed.

Mrs. Bixby nodded in satisfaction before escorting them inside. She showed them to their rooms and then left them alone. Peter unpacked his bag, quickly, and wandered around his empty room for a few minutes before just as quickly becoming bored. He went down the hall to Susan's room, and found her folding her clothes on her bed.

"You can't be unpacked already," she said, when she saw him standing in her doorway. "Unless you just dumped all of your clothes in a drawer."

Peter gave her a guilty smile and she sighed in exasperation.

"You're hopeless," she informed him.

"I folded my clothes!" Peter insisted.

"I've seen what you call folding," Susan retorted, sternly. "There's a reason Mum banned you from helping with the laundry."

"And here I thought it was because laundry is women's work," Peter teased.

Susan's eyes widened in shock and she chucked a rolled-up ball of socks at him. Her aim was good; she clipped the side of his head when he ducked and would have gotten him in the face if he hadn't moved.

"All right, all right, I give up!" he cried, holding up his hands in surrender when Susan continued to mercilessly pelt him with sock balls.

"Say it," Susan said, threateningly, holding another sock ball in her hand.

"Laundry isn't women's work!" Peter said, quickly, holding his hands up to protect his head.

Susan smirked at him in triumph and went around her room, picking up her scattered socks. Peter got back to his feet just as Mrs. Bixby darkened Susan's doorway.

"What is going on here?" she demanded.

"We're sorry, ma'am," Peter said, hurriedly, choosing discretion over a potential confrontation. "It won't happen again."

"See that it doesn't," Mrs. Bixby said, still looking at them, suspiciously. "Come down for dinner, both of you."

An hour later, when the tense, awkward meal was finally over, Mrs. Bixby fixed Susan and Peter with a stern look.

"As long as you are staying in my home," she began, "I have certain expectations of you."

"What kind of expectations, ma'am?" Susan ventured, an uneasy tone in her voice.

"Chores," Mrs. Bixby informed them, promptly. "Both you and Peter will have daily tasks that are to be completed every day, promptly and properly. I will give you your first list in the morning."

Having issued her directive, Mrs. Bixby left, presumably leaving her "guests" to do the dinner dishes. After a few minutes, Susan sighed and, standing, began stacking dishes to take back to the kitchen. Peter gathered the glasses, and the two of them went into the kitchen and began washing the dirty dishes.

"Do you think Mrs. Bixby realizes that we're evacuees and not unpaid labor?" Susan asked, as she finished sponging of the final dish and handed it over to Peter.

"I doubt it," Peter replied. "But, I'm glad we were the ones sent here, instead of Edmund and Lucy."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

Edmund pulled Lucy back in through the window as the train picked up speed and Peter and Susan disappeared from sight. He sat back down on the seat, not protesting when Lucy curled up beside him. After a minute, Edmund dropped his arm around Lucy's shoulders, and his little sister smiled tremulously at him.

"Are we almost there?" Lucy asked, plaintively.

"I don't think so," Edmund said, checking the name of their destination printed clearly on his and Lucy's tags. "Coombe Halt is a long way out in the country; we probably still have a ways to go, yet."

"I miss Peter and Susan, already," Lucy told him.

"Peter said they'd write every week," Edmund reminded her. "He'll probably get Susan to compose the letters, and you know how she writes. She'll have so many details, we'll feel like we're right there with her and Peter."

"It's not the same, though," Lucy insisted, and Edmund found himself agreeing with her, even if he didn't voice the sentiment out loud.

Lucy fell silent, then, and Edmund went back to staring out of the window. He caught Nancy's sympathetic look out of the corner of his eye, and scowled. They didn't need her, or anyone else's, pity. They had each other, didn't they? He was going to look after Lucy like a proper big brother, just like he had promised Peter, and they were going to be just fine.

The train jerked to a stop, startling Edmund out of his thoughts. The conductor announced the name of the station, and Nancy stood up, gathering her bags and Jamie around her.

"Good luck," she said, and Edmund nodded.

"Good luck," he echoed, and the older girl smiled at him before leaving the train, Jamie in tow.

The train started moving, again, after the children had disembarked, and Edmund and Lucy were once more treated to a view of the seemingly-endless countryside. Lucy soon fell asleep, using Edmund's lap as her pillow, and Edmund was left without even her fidgeting to keep him distracted.

Bored, he blew a puff of warm air onto the window and began doodling in the spot left behind. He was nearly done with his picture before he realized that he was drawing a fighter plane – one of the ones that the Germans used when dropping bombs on London. Hastily, he puffed on the window, again, fogging over the picture. He didn't want to think about the war anymore than he had to, and he especially didn't want Lucy to start crying, again, if she woke up and saw the image.

Instead, he doodled shapes and squiggles, and something that almost looked like a lion, for the rest of the trip. He became so engrossed in adding more and more to the random designs that he didn't even notice that the train had stopped until the conductor announced Coombe Halt Station.

Edmund stood, wincing when all his careful work was obliterated when his elbow knocked against the window. He shook Lucy awake, grabbed their bags down from above the seat, and they clambered to get off the train before it left the station.

There was a sizable gap between the train and the platform, as though someone hadn't put much care into building it. Edmund looked, worriedly, at the gap and at Lucy, wondering how he was going to get her across with her shorter legs, but the conductor solved the problem by picking Lucy up and jumping across to the platform with her, making her laugh with delight. The man then held out a hand to Edmund to help him across, but Edmund shook his head and passed their bags over to the older man, jumping over on his own as soon as the way was clear. Lucy giggled, again, as the conductor exaggeratedly tipped his hat to them before jumping back onto the train, and then the children were alone as the train left the platform, white smoke billowing up into the clouds.

This station was much smaller than any of the others, hardly a proper train station at all. And there were no crowds of people waiting to greet the children they were housing; in fact, there was no one at all besides the group of children standing at the other end of the platform. As he and Lucy approached the group, Lucy grabbed his hand, holding on tightly.

"Are you going to Professor Kirke's, also?" Edmund asked, and the oldest of the group, a girl about his age, turned to look at them.

"Is there anywhere else to go?" she asked, looking around the countryside. "I'm Sophie, and the little monsters are David, Richard, and Matthew."

She gestured to each boy as she spoke, and Edmund recognized the two youngest as the boys he'd seen on the train. The third boy, about Lucy's age, glared at Lucy when she smiled hesitantly at him, and Edmund scowled at the younger boy.

"Peter and Susan could have come with us," Lucy said, as she looked over the group. "The Professor never would notice two more."

"Your friends?" Sophie asked.

"Our brother and sister," Edmund explained. "They got off at Goosey Station."

"You were split up," Sophie said, knowingly. "It happens, sometimes."

Just then, the sound of a car engine broke through the still silence, and the children hurried off the platform to meet it. It drove over the tracks without stopping, though, and Edmund looked up the way it had come to see if there was anyone following.

"The Professor knew we were coming," he said, as everyone craned their heads around, trying to spot an elusive vehicle. "Didn't he?"

"Perhaps we've been incorrectly labeled," Matthew suggested, looking down at his tag in confusion.

"We have not been incorrectly labeled," Sophie told her brother, firmly. Glancing back up the road, she added, "There has to be someone coming. He can't mean us to walk, can he? We don't even know where he lives."

"Here comes someone!" Lucy exclaimed, suddenly, pointing up the road.

A small horse-drawn car drew near, stopping alongside them and the stern-faced woman driving the cart gazed down at them.

"Mrs. Macready?" Edmund ventured.

"I'm afraid so," the woman replied. Looking over the group more closely, she asked, "Is this it, then? Haven't you brought anything else?"

"No, ma'am," Sophie answered. "It's just us."

"Small favors," Mrs. Macready said, a hint of a smile ghosting over her face.

She waited while they loaded themselves and their luggage into the cart, Edmund helping the younger children up, first, before he got in, and then she glanced back at the group.

"All settled?" she asked, and when everyone had nodded, she flicked her whip across the horse's back, staring the cart forward.

They reached the Professor's house, shortly, and went inside, but Mrs. Macready stopped them just inside the foyer.

"The Professor is unaccustomed to having children in his house," she informed them. "As such, there are a few rules you must follow. There is to be no running, no shouting, and no improper use of the dumbwaiter," she added, this last included an eyebrow raised in the boys' direction.

Edmund smirked, slightly, when Sophie's brothers elbowed each other, whispering, no doubt planning how to sneak into the dumbwaiter.

"No touching of the historical artifacts," Mrs. Macready continued, shooting the younger boys a suspicious look and silencing their whispers. "And, most importantly, no disturbing of the Professor."

"I should rather think I'd like to be disturbed once and a while."

The older gentleman that appeared at the top of the stairs came down to their level, surveying the children with obvious delight.

"Well, what have we here?" he asked.

"These are our guests, Professor," Mrs. Macready said. "The evacuees from London."

"Well," the Professor repeated. "What to do with you, then? You have families back in London, I recall?"

"Yes, sir," Sophie answered.

"Our father went away to war, sir," Lucy spoke up.

"As did a good many men," the Professor said. "Well, I suppose, seeing as it's war time, one must make some pretense at military precision. In a line, all of you!"

This last was barked out as though it was an order, and the children dutifully obeyed, lining up in their respective family units. The Professor went down the line, and each recited their name, and the old man beamed when it was done.

"Wonderful!" he exclaimed. "Now, Mrs. Macready, I'm sure the children are all tired from their long journey, and don't want to have to keep an old man company. See that their dinner is served in the upstairs study."

"Melissa has already retired for the evening, sir," Mrs. Macready reminded him.

"I don't think she'd mind being woken up for this, do you?" the Professor asked.

"No, sir," Mrs. Macready responded.

She escorted the group upstairs, and they were served dinner rather quickly by a young maid who was still rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. They ate in relative silence, still too unused to each other to try and make small talk. And as soon as they were finished eating, Sophie and her brothers took off for their rooms without a look back.

When they were gone, Lucy pushed her plate away, listlessly.

"I'm not hungry," she said. "The food doesn't taste right, here."

Edmund took another bite of his meal and chewed slowly.

"It tastes fine to me," he said, finally.

"It doesn't taste like home," Lucy told him, unhappily. "Mum makes it differently."

"We'll go home, soon," Edmund said, trying to sound reassuring. "We won't be here, forever. The war has to end sometime."

"What if it doesn't end?" Lucy asked, plaintively. "Or, what if home isn't there, anymore?"

Before Edmund could think of an answer, Mrs. Macready poked her head into the study.

"I believe it's time the two of you were in bed," she told them.

Lucy scrambled to her feet and Edmund followed. Both grabbed their plates, but the older woman shook her head.

"Leave them for Melissa," she said. "She'll clean them up."

"It's what I'm here for," the young woman said, as she entered the room.

As Edmund and Lucy left the study escorted by Mrs. Macready, presumably so they wouldn't linger on the way to their rooms, they could hear the quiet clinking of the dishes as Melissa stacked them. She was singing softly to herself, a little tune that Edmund remembered their mother singing, before the war, and tears sprang to his eyes before he hastily dashed them away.

He and Lucy were shown to Lucy's room by Mrs. Macready, who wished them a good night before continuing down the hall. Edmund helped Lucy get ready for bed as best he could, and then he tucked her in and dropped an awkward kiss on her forehead. Then, he went to his own room and fell deeply into a dreamless sleep.

What seemed like only seconds later, Edmund was being shaken awake and, when he opened his eyes, he saw Lucy standing beside his bed.

"I can't sleep," she whispered. "The sheets are scratchy."

"Go back to bed, Lucy," Edmund groaned, irritably, shutting his eyes and shutting his sister out.

Then, feeling a pang of guilt, and hearing Peter's voice in the back of his mind, he opened his eyes to see Lucy still standing there, her lower lip trembling. With a sigh, Edmund lifted the edge of the blanket and scooted over as Lucy scrambled into the bed beside him. She snuggled against Edmund's shoulder, falling asleep as soon as he had tucked the blanket back around her shoulders, and Edmund followed soon after, the sound of his sister's rhythmic breathing quiet to his ears.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note: **Yeah, I know it's been forever since I updated. Peter and Susan's part of the story has been giving me a lot of trouble. I do have the next couple of chapters written, so it hopefully won't take me as long to update, again.

**Chapter Five**

Peter woke up to the sound of branches scraping against the window of his bedroom. He opened his eyes to find that it was still dark outside, with a storm brewing outside. He watched as the rain pounded against the side of the house, covering the window with a thick sheen of water, and he wondered if Lucy and Edmund were waking up to the same storm.

The sound of his door opening drew his attention away from the window, and he looked around to see Susan tiptoeing into his bedroom, still in her nightgown and a pair of slippers.

"I know it's still early," she whispered, as she sat down beside him on the bed, "but I just couldn't sleep."

"Thinking about Edmund and Lucy?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

"It's not fair," Susan said, quietly. "We never should have been split up like we were."

"Mum didn't have a choice," Peter reminded her.

Susan opened her mouth to respond, but she was interrupted by a crack of thunder that made both children jump. The thunder was followed by a blinding flash of lightning that had them shielding their eyes from the glare. The glare faded, but there was still a glow coming from outside when they opened their eyes.

Peter ran to the window, Susan at his shoulder as he looked outside. The bolt of lightning had struck an old apple tree planted in front of the house, splitting the tree nearly in two from the force. The remains of the tree were on fire, and Peter heard Susan gasp in horror behind him before she whirled and ran out of the room.

"Fire!" Susan screamed, as she sprinted down the hallway, her nightgown flapping around her legs. "Mrs. Bixby, fire!"

Peter followed her, pounding down the stairs behind her as they headed for the front door, adding his voice to hers to wake up the rest of the house. He kept yelling as they burst out onto the front lawn, hoping that there were neighbors near enough to hear him.

"Susan," he gasped out, grabbing his sister by the shoulder when she stopped, staring at the destroyed tree in shock. He gave her a quick shake to get her attention, nodding at the old well off to the side of the house. "Water."

Susan nodded, and they headed for the well, skirting the burning tree. Peter flinched from the heat, praying that the flames didn't jump from the tree to the house. The rain that was pouring down was dousing some of the smaller fires that sprang up, but the main blaze was still going strong. And the wind was picking up, causing what was left of the tree to sway dangerously close to the house.

At the well, Susan was already hauling up a bucket of water, passing it to him as soon as the rope stopped moving. Peter grabbed the bucket and bolted back to the burning tree, ignoring the water that sloshed out of the bucket and hit his already-soaked pajamas. He tossed the water on the flames, running back for another bucket and passing Susan.

She'd hiked her nightgown up around her knees, to better run across the wet grass, and somewhere along the way, she'd lost her slippers. She held another bucket of water in her hands, which she threw on the tree as soon as she was within range.

The storm was still ranging, and the downpour was finally starting to have an effect. The fire was finally dying down, and Peter pulled Susan away from the tree, wrapping his arm around her shaking shoulders as they watched the last of the flames extinguish.

"The poor tree," Susan whispered, and Peter wondered if some of the water on her cheeks was due to tears.

Mrs. Bixby's neighbors had finally shown up, and Peter could see them staring at the remains of the tree, whispering amongst themselves. Looking around, he saw Mrs. Bixby standing in the front doorway of her house, staring at the tree with an unreadable expression on her face. Tugging on Susan's arm, he steered his sister over to where the older woman was waiting.

"We tried to save the tree," Peter began, even though he knew that there was nothing they could have done.

"It needed to come down," Mrs. Bixby said, her lips pressed in a tight line as she looked at the dead tree.

"We're really sorry," Susan said, but Mrs. Bixby shook her head.

"Come back inside," she ordered, turning and walking back into the house. "And don't drip water on my floors."

"How could she not care?" Susan asked, still looking at the tree.

"It's just an old tree," Peter said, hesitantly, wondering why Susan was letting herself get so worked up about it.

His sister just shook her head, giving him a disapproving glare before she turned and went back into the house.

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

The rain had finally let up by the afternoon, the storm front moving on. Peter and Susan were hard at work inside the house, dusting and cleaning the sitting room.

"Are you still upset about that tree?" Peter asked, glancing over at Susan, who was running an old, soft rag over the glass of the window.

"It's more than just an old tree," Susan said, tightly, not looking at him.

"What are you talking about?" Peter asked.

"I saw that tree, yesterday, when we came in," Susan told him. "There was an old swing tied to one of the branches. Someone used to play on that tree."

"I didn't see that," Peter admitted, quietly. "Do you think it was Mrs. Bixby's son or daughter?"

"Probably," Susan replied. "I can't see her letting one of the neighbor's kids play in her yard, can you?"

"I can't see Mrs. Bixby having children in the first place," Peter quipped, drawing a small smile from Susan.

He poked at the baseboard with the broom he was holding, earning him an exasperated sigh from Susan as she watched him.

"You are utterly hopeless at that," she told him, and he grinned, sheepishly.

"You know what we should do when we're done?" Peter asked, a few minutes later, as he was sweeping under an ornate settee.

"Write a letter to Edmund and Lucy like we promised we would?" Susan asked, dryly.

"I was thinking about exploring around the house," Peter told her. "Especially the woods at the back of the property."

"That could be fun," Susan agreed. "But, we'd get in trouble if Mrs. Bixby caught us."

"That's half the fun," Peter said, grinning.

A loud, cracking noise interrupted the rest of what he was going to say, and he followed Susan to the window to see a trio of men standing around the tree, working to tear it down.

"Sorry, Su," Peter said, and his sister nodded, wordlessly.

"It's just not fair," she said, quietly, but Peter had a feeling that she was talking about more than just the tree.

They finished up in the sitting room, going outside and wandering over to where the men were hard at work. When they'd first seen the men, Peter had wondered how they'd avoided conscription into the army, but as they got closer, he could see that one of the men was older than the others, his salt-and-pepper hair brushed back in a widow's peak. The other two, looking enough alike to be brothers, were barely more than boys, themselves, still too young to enlist.

"Watch yourselves!" the older man called out, seeing them approach. "Stand back, you two. I don't want you getting hurt."

"Yes, sir," Peter replied, as he and Susan stopped a safe distance away. "Do you need any help?"

"Nah," the man said, after thinking about it for a few moments. "Me 'n the boys have everything under control."

He turned his attention back to the boys, helping them wrench a branch away from the rest of the tree, tossing it into a slowly-growing pile with the rest of the wood.

"So, you two were evacuated," the man went on, a few minutes later. "Came from London?"

"Finchley," Susan told him. "Have you known Mrs. Bixby for very long?"

"Long enough," the man said, laconically. "Been living next to Sam and Marjorie for near about twenty years, now."

"So, she's married?" Peter asked, curiously.

"Sam died ten years ago," the old man told them. "Same car accident that killed their boy."

"She did have a son," Susan hissed to Peter.

"Gregory," one of the boys spoke up, hearing her. "We used to play, together. We even had a swing on this old tree."

The boy, his dark hair falling into his eyes, gave the tree a nudge with his foot before he went back to breaking up the wood.

"Pity the tree had to come down," his brother added. "We had a lot of fun with this tree."

"Back to work," their father said, his voice lightly scolding.

Peter and Susan watched them work for about half an hour more, then wandered around the outside of the house, just exploring the grounds.

"So, now I guess we know why Mrs. Bixby seems so cold," Susan said, quietly. "Can you imagine, losing your whole family in one moment, like that?"

"I don't want to imagine it," Peter said, passionately. "If anything happened to you, or Edmund, or Lucy…"

He trailed off, unwilling to continue with that train of thought. Susan put her hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently in support.

"Nothing's going to happen to Edmund and Lucy," she said, knowing what was bothering him. "They're perfectly safe where they are. They're probably bored silly, being so far out in the country."

"You're right," Peter admitted, after a few moments. "Come on, let's go back to the house. We've got a letter to start."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

The storm that had blown in late that morning was still going strong, the rain keeping the children confined to the house. Lucy sat in the window seat of the upstairs study, staring out at the rain pounding on the window. She still had tear tracks on her cheeks from crying, when Matthew had been teasing her, earlier, and the little sniffles that Edmund heard every now and then indicated that she wasn't yet over the hurt.

"Do you suppose Susan and Peter miss us?" she asked, plaintively.

"Of course they do," Edmund replied.

"Do you think they're having more fun than us?" Lucy continued.

"I doubt it, in this weather," Edmund told her, looking out at the rain. "Besides, Mrs. Bixby didn't sound like very much fun when Mum talked about her. She sounded stuffy."

"I'm bored," Matthew interrupted, throwing himself down on the ornate couch, dramatically.

"Then, find something to do," Edmund retorted, resisting the urge to glare at the younger boy. He still hadn't forgiven the boy's earlier rudeness to Lucy.

"We could play a game," Sophie suggested, clearly trying to keep the peace.

"A game sounds like fun," Edmund said, neutrally.

Fifteen minutes later, when Sophie had the enormous dictionary perched in her lap, reading off the definition for yet another long word, Edmund was regretting even his mild pretense at enthusiasm.

"Relates to the digestive and circulatory systems," Sophie said, happily. "Come on, Edmund. What's the word?"

"I don't know," Edmund admitted, with a sigh.

"It's a Latin word," Sophie told him, encouragingly.

"Is it Latin for worst game ever invented?" Richard muttered, startling a laugh out of Edmund, as Sophie slammed the dictionary shut.

"Let's play hide and seek," Lucy said, pleadingly, to Edmund, as Sophie glared at her snickering brothers.

"But we're already having so much fun," Edmund said, mockingly, and Sophie turned her angry look on him.

"Please?" Lucy pleaded. "Please, Edmund?"

She gave him such a sad-eyed look that Edmund didn't know how he'd ever resisted her in the first place.

"Pretty please?" she continued, adding a little pout for good measure.

"One," Edmund started counting with a sigh, knowing that he was as good as won over, anyway. "Two, three, four…"

Everyone else scrambled to hide as he continued counting. He took a quick peek when he didn't hear any more footsteps, and he grinned when he saw a pair of feet sticking out from underneath the sofa.

"You're supposed to hide in another room," he said, in an undertone, still keeping count in his head.

David, Sophie's youngest brother, popped up from underneath the sofa and glared at Edmund.

"You're not supposed to look," he scolded Edmund, who almost started laughing at the younger boy's serious tone.

David dashed out of the room and Edmund started counting out loud again, to let the other boy know how long he had left to hide. When he reached one hundred, he left his post and started searching for the other children. He'd only gotten a few feet out of the room and down the hallway when he heard Lucy yelling. Thinking that she'd gotten hurt somehow, he sprinted down the hallway and up the stairs, in the direction of her voice.

"It's all right, I'm back," she was saying, when he reached the stretch of hallway where she and Matthew were standing.

"You know, I don't think you two have quite got the point of this game," Edmund said, lightly, as he tried to get his racing heart to slow down, now that he knew that Lucy wasn't in any danger.

"Does this mean that we've won?" Sophie asked, as she joined the group with Richard and David in tow.

"I don't think Lucy wants to play any more," Edmund told her, giving his little sister a worried look.

"But, I haven't been here," Lucy protested. "Haven't you all been wondering where I was?"

"That's the point, dummy," Matthew said, scornfully, as Edmund and Sophie glared at him. "That's why he was seeking you."

"But, I've been gone hours!" Lucy said, insistently.

"Lucy, I counted to one hundred," Edmund told her. "It only took a few minutes."

"Come with me," Lucy said, grabbing her brother by the hand and pulling him down the hall. The others trailed after with amused grins on their faces.

"Matthew beat me to the curtain," Lucy explained, as she dragged him along. "So, I went upstairs and I found this beautiful old wardrobe, and when I hid inside, there was no back to it, and I came out into a forest that was covered in snow."

She paused in her recitation to get his reaction, but when he only looked at her in disbelief, she rolled her eyes, exasperatedly, and continued.

"I met a Faun, and his name is Mr. Tumnus, and he gave me tea and biscuits, and he played a lovely little tune on his flute. He was going to turn me over to the White Witch, but he helped me to escape instead."

By then, they'd reached the room with the wardrobe, and Lucy indicated it with a flourish.

"It's all in there," she said, solemnly.

Casting Lucy another doubtful look, Edmund stepped up into the wardrobe and rapped on the hard back, hearing the answering knocks of someone on the other side.

"The only wood in here is the back of the wardrobe," Edmund said, as he climbed down.

"It's solid," Sophie confirmed, coming out from behind the wardrobe.

"But it was just there!" Lucy cried, scrambling into the wardrobe to see for herself.

A few seconds later, she reemerged, a heartbroken look on her young face. She kept sneaking glances back at the wardrobe, as if she expected the door to her magical world to appear at any second.

"It really was there," she insisted, but now she sounded confused, and a little bit afraid.

"One game at a time, Lu," Edmund told her. "We don't all have your imagination."

""I'm not playing a game!" Lucy said, tearfully. "I wouldn't lie about this."

"I believe you," Matthew spoke up, from where he was leaning on the doorframe.

The interruption had everyone looking over at the younger boy in surprise. He'd made no effort to hide his feelings for Lucy, teasing her mercilessly since they'd arrived.

"You do?" Lucy asked, clearly puzzled by this sudden show of support from an unexpected source.

"Sure," the younger boy continued. "Didn't I tell you about the football field in the bathroom cupboards?"

Lucy's face crumpled at his words, tears shining in her eyes as Matthew smirked at her.

"Shut up, you," Edmund growled, turning on Matthew, who took a step backward in alarm.

Edmund knew he'd made a promise to Peter, but he'd also vowed to look after Lucy, and letting Matthew make fun of his baby sister wasn't protecting her. And at the smug look on the younger boy's face, it was all he could do not to grab Matthew and shake him until he apologized.

"Do stop," Sophie told her brother. "It's not nice to tease people who are-"

She trailed off before she had finished her sentence, but Edmund had no trouble filling in the parts left unsaid.

_'It's not nice to tease people who aren't right in the head,'_ he finished, bitterly.

"I'm not lying," Lucy repeated, pleadingly, when Edmund turned back to her.

"I don't think you're lying," Edmund said, and Lucy's eyes lit up before he continued, "but, maybe you were dreaming."

Lucy shook her head, looking like she was on the verge of tears. "I wasn't dreaming," she said, softly.

"Lucy, you probably fell asleep in the wardrobe while you were hiding, and you dreamed it all up," Edmund told her. "It sounds like you had a wonderfully fantastic dream."

"It wasn't a dream!" Lucy insisted, mulishly stubborn. "I really went to Narnia!"

Behind her, Matthew, David, and Richard were openly laughing, not even bothering to hide the mockery on their faces. Sophie, on the other hand, was looking at him and Lucy with an expression of sympathy, which was almost worse than the mocking.

"That's enough, Lucy," Edmund snapped, feeling his patience with his sister, and with the others in the room, disappear. "You're too old to play these silly games."

"It's not a silly game!" Lucy cried, angry tears springing to her eyes.

"This lying has got to stop," Edmund said, firmly, hating himself for putting the heartbroken look on her face, but not knowing how else to handle the situation.

"I'm not lying!" Lucy exclaimed, almost screaming at him. "You're the liar! You're just as mean and horrible as you were before we came here, and I hate you!"

Tears streaming down her face, Lucy bolted from the room, leaving a stunned silence in her wake.

"Well, that was nicely handled," Sophie said, sarcastically, smirking now that Lucy was no longer in the room.

"Don't you have your own family to look after?" Edmund retorted, hurrying out the door after Lucy.

He didn't make it very far, though, before he was stopped by Professor Kirke standing directly in his path.

"Are you the reason for all the shouting and weeping?" the older man asked, curiously.

"It's my sister, Lucy, sir," Edmund told him. "She's upset with me."

"I can tell that," Professor Kirke said, and Edmund bristled at the man's tone. Was he actually laughing at him?

"I really should go after my sister, sir," he said, when Professor Kirke made no move to get out of his way.

"Why is your sister upset with you?" Professor Kirke asked, as though he hadn't even spoken. Edmund sighed, resigned to having to answer the man's questions, rather than going after Lucy.

"She made up a story which she insists is true," Edmund told him. "And she won't admit otherwise."

"And why should she?" Professor Kirke asked. "Why should she compromise her convictions to make you feel better?"

"You're saying that you believe her?" Edmund asked, incredulously. "How can you? You don't even know what she said."

"All right, I'll humor you," Professor Kirke said, and he sounded patronizing. "What did your sister claim?"

"She says that she found a world in the back of the upstairs wardrobe," Edmund told him. "She called it Narnia."

"That's quite an incredible claim," Professor Kirke said. "Even more so if it's true."

"But, it can't be true!" Edmund insisted. "I looked, Sophie looked, even Lucy got back in the wardrobe to take a look. There was nothing there except the back of the wardrobe."

"So, you're saying that, in order for something to be perceived as real, it must be able to be seen and felt at all times?" Professor Kirke asked.

"Isn't that what real is?" Edmund retorted, snappishly.

"Reality is what you make of it," Professor Kirke told him, and Edmund rolled his eyes.

"You need to have more faith," Professor Kirke told him, ignoring his silent complaint. "Faith in the impossible, and in your sister. You're all each other has here; you're a family, it's time you started acting like one!"

His wisdom imparted, Professor Kirke continued down the hallway, leaving Edmund to stare after him in disbelief. Then, he went and searched for Lucy. He'd looked all over the house, and was beginning to become worried, when he found the well-hidden attic at the top of the staircase.

Entering the room, he found Lucy wedged into a cramped window seat in the tiny attic. She was staring out at the rain and drawing pictures on the fogged-up window, like he'd done on the train. As he got closer, Edmund could see that her picture was of an oddly-shaped man with an umbrella.

"Lucy," he began, but his sister didn't even look at him.

"I'm not speaking to you," she informed him, her voice sounding stuffy, like she'd been crying ever since she left the room.

"Come on, Lu," he wheedled. "You can't stay mad at me, forever."

Lucy shot him a quick, angry look, and Edmund started, guiltily, when he saw how red and puffy her eyes were. The knife in his heart twisted further when he imagined her sitting up in the attic, all alone, sobbing her heart out.

Some big brother he was turning out to be; not even a full day had passed, and he was already failing in his promise to keep Lucy safe.

"I can, too, stay mad at you, forever," Lucy said, breaking him out of his thoughts. "You called me a liar."

"I never!" Edmund protested, before falling silent when he remembered their conversation downstairs, and that he had, in fact, said that she was lying.

"I'm sorry," he apologized, finally, grudgingly. "I didn't mean to say that you were a liar."

"Thank you," Lucy said, accepting his apology, but clearly still hurt by his earlier words.

"All I meant was," he tried to clarify, "you can't claim that things are true when they're not."

"It is true!" Lucy cried, jumping up from her seat and glaring at him. "I really went to Narnia!"

"Lucy," Edmund groaned, exasperated. "Enough of this. You've had your fun."

"Stop trying to be a grown-up," Lucy snapped at him, peevishly.

"There was nothing there!" Edmund told her, impatiently. "You even looked."

"It was there, before," Lucy said, stubbornly.

"Even if I believed you," Edmund snapped back, without thinking, "there's no proof that it's true. Only your word."

Lucy stared at him for the longest time, perilously close to tears. There was hurt etched on her features, and her hands were clenched into angry fists.

"Isn't my word enough?" she asked finally, before storming away and leaving her brother alone in the solitude of the attic.

Edmund heaved a defeated sigh, mentally composing his first letter to their siblings in his head.

_"Dear Peter and Susan: the weather is lousy, the company is horrible, and I seem to have somehow broken Lucy…"_


End file.
